Border Reivers
by post-war
Summary: Set a few years after 408. Naomi's and Emily's lives have spiralled in two very different directions. Can they carry on the way they've been living? Or do they still need each other?
1. Chapter 1

**Hello again! Spurred on by the fact I actually completed my last story to a degree that I was semi-satisfied with (which was the first time that's ever happened ... with anything) I thought I'd have a go at a new one.**

**It is not AU, but it is set a few years after season 4. I wanted to write it because I think that 408 (and the majority of season 4) introduced some pretty huge themes without actually dealing with them. And also I wanted to have one more go at a Naomily fic before season 5 kick starts. Maybe have a read and tell me what you think?**

**Side note: the opinions expressed by the characters in these chapters are not necessarily mine.**

**Thanks for reading :)**

**Have a nice day**

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_'I don't belong to anyone._

_My heart is heavy as an oil drum._

_And I don't want to be alone._

_My heart is yellow as an ear of corn,_

_and I have torn my soul apart, from_

_pulling artlessly with fool commands_.' – Joanna Newsom

Chapter one

The morning was cold, but it was clear. Heavy bolts were heaved grudgingly from their metal casings and huge barred doors were slid open on their rusted runners, making the whole world flicker for a moment as the bars rushed past, like the beginning of an old film reel.

Naomi stepped beyond them, clutching the polythene bag of personal belongings in one hand and her stamped and approved papers in the other.

She handed the letter over to the stern, matronly officer who waited at the smaller wooden fire-door at the end of the corridor. She scanned the letter and forced a smile at Naomi, scribbling a signature on the paper before tugging at the keys attached to her belt.

'Finally letting you out then are they?' the woman sneered. Toning with her uniform, the warden's voice was like cracked ice.

Naomi rolled her eyes. They always have to say_ something_, she thought. 'Yes miss,' was all she answered, wishing to make any interaction with the warden as brief as possible.

'You could've been out a month ago,' the woman felt the need to elaborate. 'If you hadn't caused such a scene,' she added.

'Well, I quite like here,' Naomi answered, feeling her anger begin to heat her face in the cold reception room, 'the food's great, the service is exquisite and as for the ladies ...' she paused to look appreciatively up and down the length of the warden's body, 'Mmm –mm.'

The warden's smug demeanour immediately switched to something distinctly more hostile, as she roughly jammed the keys into the lock and wrenched the door open.

'Get out Campbell,' she said, holding the door open.

'I'll never forget our time together Miss,' Naomi said with mock sadness, one final triumphant jibe at the warden before she stepped out of the door and into the visitor's car park of the prison. The door was yanked shut behind her, and Naomi was left completely exposed to the world, suddenly small and fragile in the cold light that she was now bathed in. Inside, she had felt squeezed and shuttered into rooms far too small, but now the emptiness of the car park pressed and stretched at the edges of her reality. Her breath steamed into the air and swirled away, lost against the sharp blue sky that just carried on and on.

She scanned the car park for any person or automobile she might recognise. In the small security booth that stayed vigilant over the car park entrance, a bald man sat engrossed in a newspaper.

'Excuse me,' Naomi said, peering up at the window.

'Yes love?' the man said cheerfully, placing the paper on the desk in front of him and looking down at the blonde girl on the tarmac below.

'Has anyone come through here with the name Campbell?' she asked hopefully.

The man scratched at the stubble on his chin. The rough grating sound echoed across the deserted asphalt. 'Don't think so love,' he answered.

Naomi sighed, nodding at the man and walking away. She twirled the polythene bag round unenthusiastically as she wandered toward the bicycle parking area. It was close to the walls, as far away from the emptiness as she could manage. She sat down on the cold metal railings and speculated on the reasons for her mother's lateness. Either she had simply forgotten that today was Naomi's revised release date, or she knew perfectly well what today was but was using last-year's calendar (again), or, possibly more likely, half of Kieran's engine had fallen out onto the motorway on the way and the two of them were currently sat on the hard shoulder, working out a way to forge car-insurance documentation.

Naomi sighed and scuffed at the white grid line painted on the tarmac beneath her feet. Even though her Mum had told her countless times on the phone and during the few visits she managed to make that she didn't think any less of her, it didn't stop the niggling suspicion at the back of her mind.

That insuppressible, cold, creeping sensation of shame.

Naomi tried to shake the feeling. In a way, it was kind of her mother's fault she had ended up here in the first place. Waiting in the unbearable silence of the car park, Naomi felt compelled to retrace that path that had led her here. A lot had happened in the last few years. Naomi could track it back effortlessly, as she always could with anything that had gone wrong in her life, to Freddie's death.

She had seen her second dead body of the year the day that he died.

It was a loud noise: a clunk against the window, as if made by a lump of thrown clay not hard enough to shatter the glass. Cautiously inspecting beneath the window outside, Naomi saw the bird on the ground, one wing tucked up against its back, the other splayed outwards. A female blackbird, or a fledgling perhaps. It lay on its front, with its right leg stretched outwards beneath it. Its eyes were wide and black, its mouth gaping. Naomi crouched down to pick it up. It was warm and firm, covering the whole palm of her hand. Its chest rose and fell frantically, its throat swelling and deflating, its beak still gaping. Naomi had laid the bird in the soft underbelly of the hedge outside her house so it had somewhere sheltered to recover. But when she returned no more than ten minutes later to check on it, the bird's eyes and mouth were closed, and it lay quietly where Naomi had placed it, in the soft green tendrils of the hedge.

Naomi tentatively shook the branches of the plant, hoping to wake the bird from sleep. The bird's head shook upon its shoulders with the movement of the plant beneath it. Its eyes remained closed, it stayed where it lay.

She had often wondered if Freddie had looked like that, the second before he died. Mouth and eyes opened in terror, chest heaving as he struggled to stay alive for just one more second.

Death seemed to follow her around, hounding her, banging at her windows. She was destructive. Freddie's death was the last clue that finally made her realise. She had started an inexorable chain of death and grief. And she was unable to protect anyone she loved from it. Emily, her first and only girlfriend, had tried to pull her together. Her words of comfort had dropped as heavy as stones. Naomi couldn't believe her, even if she wanted to. It wasn't the first time she had broken Emily's heart.

Her mother's (previously ridiculed) feminist campaign group had provided a welcome outlet for her frustration. Her youthful radicalism and angry energy had brought a refreshing lift to the group of earth-loving, aging hippies. But Naomi had taken it too far. She didn't believe in peaceful protests. Not anymore.

The rumbling chug of a dying engine permeated Naomi's thoughts, and she turned her head to see Kieran's car coughing and spluttering just beyond the barrier of the car park. Kieran was leant over a wound-down window, trying to shout something to the man in the booth over the noise of the engine.

Naomi stood up from the rail, slowly moving into the view line of the woman in the passenger seat, who sprung up immediately from out of the car and rushed towards her daughter, arms outstretched.

'Where the hell have you been?' Naomi demanded, shrugging off the chest-constricting hug her mother had enveloped her in.

'Sorry love, car trouble,' she answered, motioning to the beat up ford fiesta that sat rustily the other side of the barrier. Kieran waved at them from behind the steering wheel.

Naomi tried to roll her eyes, but instead felt them welling up with tears. She gripped her mum's hand as she walked them towards the car.

'Hello Naomi,' Kieran said in his warm, low voice as she packed herself into the back of the car. 'Fuck, is that all you've brought?' he asked.

'That's all I have,' she answered, looking at the bag, which looked sad and crumpled on the seat next to her.

'Okay then,' he said, turning his attention to the steering wheel, 'Off we go.'

The car jerked forwards violently before it agreed to reverse away from the barrier in front of it. Kieran swung the car round in a clumsy three-point turn and it trundled off in the direction of the main road.

Naomi turned to watch the tall walls of the prison get smaller and smaller as the car moved away. From here, it almost looked like you could climb them. The arrogance she had expected to feel was replaced with a sense of humble emotion, like kneeling for the dead.

Kieran stopped at a red light, and took the opportunity to look at Naomi in the rear view mirror. 'So, is it as bad as they say?' he asked.

'It's a bad as you make it,' Naomi answered simply, turning away from the back window to face the front again.

'I hear you made it pretty bad,' Kieran said, a cheeky grin peeking through his unkempt beard.

'Well I'm a trouble-maker,' Naomi allowed herself a small mischievous smile.

The light flashed amber then switched to green. Kieran's car lurched forward unpleasantly and the rumbling engine stopped abruptly. Kieran twisted the keys in the ignition, achieving nothing more than a throaty grumble from the car.

Kieran once again caught Naomi's eye in the rear-view mirror. 'Naomi,' he said as if propositioning a business deal, 'You've spent a good few months cooped up in a small space, how d'you fancy stretching your legs and helping your Mam give me a push?'

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The kitchen smelled like home more than anywhere else in the house. Naomi breathed in lung-fulls of the familiar smell as she stood placidly at the table, leaning slightly on her knuckles.

'Good to be home is it?' Kieran asked, sitting down at the table and opening the paper.

Naomi looked at him, 'It marginally beats being in prison.' God, she thought, never thought I'd say that. She took another deep breath in through her nostrils. It smelt like soup and washing powder, toast, mildew and varnish.

'Sit down sweetie,' her mum instructed, 'I'll make you some tea.'

Naomi did as she was told. She slid her hand along the smooth oak of the kitchen table. It made her think about her hands, all the kinetic joints and stretching tendons that flexed and bowed to allow her to reach out and touch things. She heard the sound of the kettle clicking off the boil, and then the sound water splashing into a cup. She heard the hiss of steam rising.

'Mum,' she said suddenly, 'I was wondering if I could have my old job back?'

Gina paused mid-pour. She opened her mouth and closed it again.

Naomi waited expectantly for her response.

Gina opened her mouth again. She reminded Naomi briefly of her blackbird. And of Freddie. And of Sophia. 'Naomi, love,' Gina spoke eventually, sitting down next to her daughter. 'Me and Kieran were thinking-'

'Hey, leave me outta this,' came the gruff interjection.

'Okay _I_ was thinking,' Gina corrected herself as the coward hid behind his newspaper, 'that maybe you should look for a job in a different ... erm ... field.'

Naomi blinked. Her previous job had been organising publicity and financing for her Mum's feminist campaign group. Actually, her initial job had been turning her Mum's weekly 'earth-power women' tea and gossiping session into a registered and active organisation. Naomi had suggested rebranding the group as 'The Nut-twister Sisters', but this was deemed too aggressive when put to the floor to vote. They had settled on the slightly more mundane but arguably more descriptive 'Women for Justice', and focused on closing the gender equality gap in areas such as employment, benefits, opportunities and sometimes reaching out into media and advertising if Naomi discovered something that particularly enraged her. She was good at her job. She was focused, decisive and passionate. And, more importantly, Naomi felt like she was doing something worthwhile. A feeling which, as she understood, was not very often experienced in an average cross-section of Britain's workforce.

'Seriously?' Naomi asked, 'Mum, come on, I'm really good! You _need_ me.'

'Naomi, I'm afraid I can't ... after what happened-' Gina attempted to breach the tender subject of Naomi's reason for incarceration.

'Mum it was a _protest_. Sometimes ... that kind of thing just happens.'

'It was a _demonstration. _And a peaceful one at that, Naomi. Peaceful. Not some 1980's picket fence.'

Naomi rolled her eyes. 'You don't get anywhere being peaceful, mother.'

'Well, what about Ghandi? Nelson Mandela? Gok Wan?'

'Mum you're being ridiculous. And anyway, I've learned my lesson. Look at me, I've reflected and grown. Please?' Naomi pulled the face she knew her Mum had great difficulty denying.

'I'm sorry Naomi,' Gina said, 'As an employer I'm under strict instruction from the home-office not to let you have anything more to do with Women for Justice.'

Naomi's jaw dropped open. 'You're kidding!' Naomi's stood up abruptly, her chair legs screeching against the kitchen floor. 'I made that group what it is! If I'd left it up to you you'd be outside in a wigwam smoking pot and selling beads!'

Gina sighed, her expression longing and her eyes glazed.

'Kieran, back me up,' Naomi demanded of the Irish man.

Kieran looked awkwardly between the two women. 'I like beads,' he said, before becoming immediately engrossed in the fashion supplement that had slipped out of the paper. 'And they are _in_ this season.'

'Fuck's sake,' Naomi said dramatically before storming out of the room. 'I don't believe this.'

'Well that went well I think,' Kieran said, peeking round the edge of the paper.

'Oh yes,' she agreed, 'Far better than I thought it would.'

...

**Side note: I have no idea about cars and whether Kieran's was a ford fiesta. I just like the double-f sound :)**


	2. Chapter 2

**Thanks for the comments guys! I'm glad that a few of you are intrigued by my ramblings :) I hope this chapter keeps you interested?**

** So, if Naomi's been busy causing enough trouble to end up in prison, what's Emily been up to? I might know ...**

**Have a nice day**

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Chapter two

A loud man shouting about car insurance jerked Emily awake. Groggily she rubbed her eyes and shifted herself into a sitting position. She had fallen asleep on the sofa during a Carry On film marathon on television, but the volume of the adverts between the films was loud enough to wake the dead. The dead didn't care about car insurance.

She yawned widely, stretching her arms and legs, a magazine sliding from her lap onto the floor. She reached down from the sofa to pick it up. Her bleary gaze settled upon the smiling couple on the shiny front. Emily's eyes went wide as she remembered what she had been doing before she had fallen asleep.

She hurriedly rifled through the glossy pages to locate the one that contained the information she had been instructed to find before her girlfriend returned home.

The sound of a key in the door told her she had left it too late.

'Shit!' Emily cursed under her breath. The television was now claiming to know how to treat early on-set baldness. This information was, sadly, not the information Emily needed.

'Hey you,' said a voice.

Emily looked up from the magazine.

A slim, brown-haired girl stood in the doorway, leaning against the jamb. Her hair was pulled back into a band at the back, frizzy wisps sticking out obstinately above her ears. A long dark coat masked the dark-blue uniform beneath it.

'Hi honey,' Emily said with a sweet smile. 'How was your day?'

The girl sat down heavily on the sofa next to Emily. 'Oh, you know,' she said, 'pretty typical. Some drunk guy exposed himself to me outside a pub. That was pretty much the highlight.'

'That's ... lovely,' Emily said. 'I didn't know law-enforcement came with free nudity.'

'Don't joke, Em,' her girlfriend said, pressing a fatigued hand to her forehead, pulling her 'migraine' face.

'Sorry.'

An advert for kitchen roll resonated in the silence. A woman was sad that she had spilt her orange juice, but was even sadder when she discovered that her kitchen roll merely tore and disintegrated when she tried to wipe it up.

'Did you find out about the caterers?' The orange juice must have reminded her.

'Um ...'

'Emily!' came the exasperated response, 'That was all you had to do today. If we don't book them soon we're going to have a hundred guests and no food to give them.'

'Okay _relax_ Sam, I'll do it now,' Emily picked up the magazine again and looked up number nine in the list of the featured 'Twenty best event caterers'.

She remembered now. It was this that had sent her to sleep.

'Thank you,' Sam said, leaning back into the sofa.

The woman had discovered a kitchen roll that could soak up all of her orange juice in one go. She was very happy now.

'Should I call them or go on their website?' Emily asked, having located both a phone number and email address. She ran her finger along the smooth page. It squeaked like a surprised rodent.

Sam looked momentarily like she was considering the question, before her features clouded and she looked pointedly at the watch on her wrist. 'For fuck's sake. It's gone six o'clock.' She tapped the face of the watch as if to stop it lying to her. 'We're going to have to wait 'til tomorrow now.'

Emily immediately turned her attention back to the Carry On Henry. She still felt the heavy tiredness of her afternoon nap in her bones, and she didn't feel energetic enough to engage in an argument with Sam. The television hummed and shimmered with activity. Anne Boleyn was being chased around a small pagoda by a particularly predatory Henry VIII.

'I'm sorry baby,' Sam said after some reflective silence. 'I just want everything to be perfect.'

Emily looked back at her girlfriend. 'I know,' she said with a small smile. 'I just wish you wouldn't stress out so much. Everything's going to be fine. Fuck the caterers. And the guests. All I care is that we're both there.'

Sam nodded in agreement. Emily settled into her side. She watched the characters on the bright screen closely. The more television she watched, the less she felt like writing. It was like the world was dissected for her, displayed in front of her to digest, saving her the trouble of picking it apart herself.

All those bare emotions locked safe behind an impenetrable screen.

'One good thing did happen today actually,' Sam said. They both watched Henry finally catch Anne Boleyn. Now she was trapped. 'You know Josie? My friend from training?'

Emily nodded absently, recalling the name but not the face.

'That inmate that's been giving her all that grief got released today.'

'Is that good?'

'Well, Josie won't have to deal with her anymore. So that's good.'

'Yeah, but I bet _you_ will now she's been released into the public,' Emily speculated, remembering Sam repeating Josie's complaints about the girl a few weeks ago. There was always a chain. 'You're probably going to be at risk of a bit more indecent exposure.'

Sam laughed. 'Let's hope she's a pretty one then.'

Emily jabbed her in the side, 'Nah, you're not that lucky.'

Sam entwined their fingers.

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The phone rang twelve times before a voice spoke at the other end. 'Hello? Angel's Delight Catering, how can I help?'

'Hi,' Emily replied, 'Would it be possible to book you for a wedding reception of one hundred guests on the fifth of March?'

'I'll just check for you now, Miss?'

'Fitch. Emily.'

There was some shuffling on the caterer's end of the line, and the crackling of the phone being passed from one hand to another. 'Yes, that day is available for booking,' came the eventual reply.

Emily sighed in relief, 'Okay great. I'd like to book that please.'

'No problem, when is a convenient time for me to arrange a consultation with an event planner?' the receptionist went on to ask.

'Um ... how soon can you do it?' Emily asked previously unaware that her personal involvement with the company extended beyond this phone call.

'There's a consultation available at two pm tomorrow afternoon. I'll inform the planner and she will contact you within the hour, okay Miss Fitch?'

'Sure, great,' Emily answered, not quite sure what was happening, but reciting her contact details to the receptionist anyway.

'Thank you for booking with us. And best of luck for the wedding,' the receptionist said brightly.

'Thanks ... actually it's a civil part-' the line went dead.

Emily twiddled the phone cable between her fingers.

'Any luck babe?' the question bounced through the hall.

'Yeah, I'm meeting a consultant tomorrow at two.'

Sam bounded down the stairs, fastening the top buttons of her shirt, 'Ooo look at you, all organised. See, I knew I could count on you.' Sam enveloped the small girl in a hug.

Emily let herself smile a small, proud smile at having done something to please. 'Make sure they know I'm allergic to prawns,' Sam said, 'Otherwise our wedding night isn't going to be much fun.'

Emily pulled a face. 'You're so romantic.'

'I'm just practical,' Sam answered, freeing Emily from her grip and doing up her last button. Emily missed the warmth of security of the arms that had left her.

'What time will you be home?' Emily asked.

'Not too late,' Sam replied ominously, 'I'm meeting up with Josie tonight. She's going to tell me all about that Naomi Campbell.'

Emily's felt something creep over her skin; a surreptitious, prickling cold that radiated from her spine and dispersed through her body. She felt like she was waist-deep in frozen water. 'Who?'

Sam rolled her eyes, 'Don't worry babe, not the model.'

Emily blinked. What model? She thought.

'That girl I was telling you about,' Sam elaborated, 'The one causing all those problems for Josie at the prison?'

'Prison?' Emily repeated, at what some might deem as a suspicious volume.

'Again, babe, not the model,' Sam assured her.

'What was ... what was she like? This, Naomi ... person?' Emily attempted to piece together a legitimate question from the thousands swimming about her head.

Sam looked at her girlfriend quizzically, 'A nightmare, apparently. 'Bout our age. Can't keep her gobby little mouth shut.'

Great. You're making her sound great. Emily swallowed. 'What did she ... why was she in ...'

'I'm not sure. Assault or property destruction or something,' Sam shrugged, 'Something to do with a protest.'

Equality, environmentalism, feminism, I-don't-ever-want-to-shut-my-mouth-ism.

'You okay babe? You've got a really weird face on,' Sam observed with concern.

Emily visibly shook herself, 'Sorry, just ... thinking about the ... caterers,' she scraped together her answer as it tried to scamper away from her.

Sam squeezed her shoulder affectionately, 'I'm excited too. Right, I've gotta go. See you later.' Sam pressed a brief kiss to Emily's forehead before leaving the house.

Emily turned her head to exchange a look with her dazed reflection in the mirror that hung above the dresser in the hall.

'Fucking ... hell.'

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	3. Chapter 3

**Thank you once again for the reviews :) Emily getting married to some random? I know, it's all kinds of wrong isn't it? Someone should definitely put a stop to that nonsense.**

**So, on with the story then: Naomi's a bit peeved at the whole 'banned from her job' thing. Let's hope she doesn't do anything stupid ... Let me know how you're finding it?**

**Have a nice day**

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Chapter Three

The euphoric feeling of waking up in her own bed was almost immediately eclipsed by the memory of yesterday's conversation with her Mum. The warm cosiness of not being shaken awake by the metallic jangling of keys and then marched briskly to an unnaturally early shower was only just settling on her skin. Naomi had barely had time to yawn and stretch and take in the way the sunlight threaded through the weave of her curtains before her thoughts were clouded with frustration.

Her mood was not helped by the punctual tapping of footsteps ascending the stairs and making their way along the corridor to her door. Naomi checked the clock beside her bed.

8.15. Not a second later. It seemed routines were going to continue to chamber her day, prison or otherwise. This particularly annoying practice was one her mother had instated once Naomi had finished school. Everything had changed after Freddie died. She declined her university place in London and moved back home, prompting her Mum to begin waking her up unnecessarily early every morning in the probable hope of motivating her to do something with her day.

'The sun's shining Naomi,' would be the first thing she heard every morning from the other side of the door (even though this was very often a lie). But before Naomi had time to pull back the curtains from behind her head to point out that this was, in fact, untrue, the door would be open and her Mum would be placing a cup of tea beside her and ruffling her hair.

And dutifully, at 8.15, 'The sun's shining Naomi,' rang the alarm call.

Naomi sucked in a deep breath and pulled the covers over her head. She heard the door open and the hollow knock of a cup being set down upon her bedside table. Naomi remained beneath the hood of the duvet, hoping the morning would retreat back over the horizon and leave her alone. She heard the rustling of paper, and inquisitively poked her head out from her quilted cloak to see her mother brandishing the local newspaper, several helpful black rings scattered among the job section.

'What's this?' she asked, knowing exactly what it was.

'Just a little something to think about,' her Mum told her.

'I have a job mother,' Naomi said, scanning the page, 'A senior director's job in _your_ organisation.'

'Naomi sweetheart,' her Mum sighed, seemingly not having the energy to get into another debate. 'Just have a look at them, hey?'

Naomi rolled her eyes and snatched the paper from her Mum's hands, zooming in on the areas her Mum had circled. 'Piano tuner?' she asked.

'A shift in focus might be nice,' was her Mum's explanation.

'Yeah ... Unless people hire piano tuners to play chopsticks ... badly, I don't think that's the career path for me Mum,' Naomi astutely observed. 'Car washer? Coupon dispenser? ... Blimp rigger? Mum, these are all fucking bollocks.'

'Yes well, the current job market isn't particularly vibrant right now but, chin up,' her Mum said as she made her way out of the room, 'I'm sure something will come up.'

Naomi sighed and petulantly flung herself back against the mattress. Something will come up, she thought scornfully. What a stupid expression. A meaningless collection of ambiguous words people recited to themselves to cover up their own incapability of actually achieving something. If something was going to 'come up' it would be due to intense planning and cultivation, or, alternatively, due to a brash, abrupt and potentially violent change of direction.

Naomi suddenly sat bolt upright, tucking her legs beneath her to kneel and bend over the side of the bed, her arms dangling in the gap between the mattress and the floor. Fumbling in the dark dustiness, her hands finally found what they were groping for. It was a soft flannel dressing gown, wrapped up in a bundle, covered in a layer of thick grey dust making it look like a scale model of mountains powdered with silver snow. She unravelled the material to reveal a laptop computer. She had hidden it under her bed before she went to prison. Ever since her mum had discovered e-bay, nothing in the house was safe.

The computer was old and slow and got unbearably hot almost immediately. Naomi felt her heart sink a little as the computer automatically synchronised her with the Women for Justice Network. Her work inbox popped up, full of emails that were, apparently, no longer her concern. The most recent one was from an address Naomi didn't recognise. It was simply titled 'What now?'

Obviously Naomi clicked on it.

'_Hey Big N_,' the email read,

'_Hear you've got yourself into some terrible trouble. We could use someone like you around. If you still believe in fighting the fight, get in touch ... when you can._

_Sincerely,_

_A like-minded admirer_ x'

Naomi sat back against her pillows.

Guess sometimes something comes up after all.

...

* * *

The thing the struck Naomi most about her mystery email sender, was that she wasn't a mystery at all. The 'secret' identity of the sender was Marie, a large-framed, stocky girl a few years older than Naomi. She had been an unpaid intern at Women for Justice a year and a half ago, but her contributions to the think-tank had been seen as a little too radical, and she had spent the remainder of her internship updating contact information for members on the database and distributing free t-shirts.

'Naomi!' the girl said, holding out a stubby hand.

Naomi pulled the collar of her coat up a little tighter around her neck, and allowed her arm to be vigorously shaken.

'You remember me, right?' Marie asked.

Naomi nodded. 'I remember you. You had some ... erm ... interesting ideas.'

Both girls knew that this was a gratuitous understatement. For someone as cheerful and relaxed as Marie, an untapped anger seethed dangerously just below the surface. She reminded Naomi of some kind of shark: perfectly happy to coexist with others until provoked, or hungry. The second your body language could be interpreted as a threat, she became a perfectly streamlined machine of destruction.

'Can I just say,' Marie added at this point, 'I think it was totally unjust that you went down for what happened at the demonstration.'

Naomi tried to smile, 'Thanks, but it's not like I was innocent or anything.' Unjust wasn't a word she liked to throw around regarding herself.

Marie seemed initially surprised at Naomi's reaction, but this quickly slipped into a sly smile. 'So it's true, you _are_ a badass now?' she asked.

Naomi rolled her eyes. People always judged her for the wrong reasons, 'I just believe in trying to make a difference.'

Marie suddenly slapped Naomi roughly on the back. Naomi jolted forwards with the force. 'Exactly. That's what we're trying to do. Come on, I'll show you.'

Marie opened the door of what Naomi had assumed was a derelict, or at least closed, pub. The building was the end of a terrace, moulded awkwardly to the shape of the street corner. It looked like someone had carved up the terrace with a giant knife, and an amorphous chunk was left over.

Inside the pub the carpet had been pulled up, leaving the rough chip board of the floor exposed. The carpet pins pointed sharply into the air like the pub's last bastion of defence. Naomi wanted to go home.

'This was my Granddad's pub,' Marie explained as she led Naomi round the left hand side of the deserted bar and up the narrow Victorian staircase. 'He left it to me when he died.'

Naomi followed dumbly, the smell of damp leeching through the old walls.

Marie's destination was, apparently, a room on the first floor. Judging by the satisfactory size of it, it had probably once been the landlord's bedroom. Naomi flicked her gaze across a desk and two dark green, old-looking sofas. Two girls sat together on one sofa, a third sat at the desk facing the wall. None of them especially acknowledged Naomi's presence.

'Guys, this is Naomi,' Marie announced. 'She's going to help us with our little project.'

At this point, Naomi decided it was time to find out what was going on. 'Hey, I never agreed to help you with anything,' she reminded Marie, folding her arms.

Marie's smile resurfaced. That toothy, untrustworthy shark smile that made Naomi wish she had never opened the email. 'When your Mum was ... erm ... _unreceptive_ to my ideas,' Marie began explaining, 'I decided that if I wanted change, I was going to have to do it myself.' She gestured to the handful of girls in the room, 'And I wasn't the only one.'

Naomi let out an audible sigh. 'Right,' she said in her best unimpressed tone. She was already bored. She could see what was happening here: Marie, border-line psychotic left-wing man-hater had not found appropriate comradeship within her Mum's ranks (which was verging on ridiculous, given the fact that her Mum was virtually unable to resist clutching the weirdest and wackiest to her proverbial bosom), and had gone out onto the streets, scraping up the city's loons and banded them into yet another, angry, radical feminist group. And an ill-conceived one at that: three girls that all looked almost as bored as Naomi and thin enough to snap. Not to mention the fact that Women for Justice actively tried to disassociate themselves with the unapproachable image these kinds of groups portrayed to the public. They had clearly singled Naomi out thinking she was a kindred spirit after hearing the news of her arrest.

'Interested in helping us out?' Marie asked, noticing Naomi trailing her gaze along her comrades.

Naomi sighed, 'I really don't want to spend my evenings graffiti-ing bill-boards and writing threatening letters to my local MP.' She wasn't about to replace a position of considerable power and influence with a place on the riot team.

Marie shook her head, 'It's not like that Naoms,' she told her. Naomi narrowed her eyes. She didn't like being called that.

'Don't judge on appearances _Naoms_,' came the comment from the girl at the desk. The words were hollow, and they felt like winter. The girl twisted round on the swivelling office chair to face Naomi's scepticism head on.

'Jesus, fuck ... Effy?' was Naomi's intelligent response.

'Naomi,' Effy replied, smiling the strange half-smile of someone who found an unsettling, black humour in everything. She was still beautiful, of course. Her eyes were still intense and vague at the same time, her hair long, her body spindly and frail like a bird's skeleton. He skin was even paler than Naomi remembered, almost clear. The more Naomi stared, the more ethereal Effy looked. Like a beautiful corpse.

'What the fuck are you doing here?' Naomi managed to ask.

'Asking you to help us break into the 'Fit Magazine' Head Office,' came Effy's unwavering reply.

'... huh?'

Marie spoke up at this point, but Naomi shifted uneasily under Effy's unrelenting stare, 'Look, we're not just a bunch of man-hating, fresh-out-of-uni idealists. We want to see actual change. But that's never going to happen as long as women have a misogynist induced cultural identity and opinion of themselves.'

'Jesus Marie, save something for the pamphlet,' Naomi muttered.

'So we target the women,' Marie continued, ignoring Naomi's comment and subsequent eye-roll.

Naomi raised an eyebrow. 'What women?'

'The women that don't do themselves any favours,' Marie said.

Naomi still didn't quite get it.

'The women that actively enforce the stereotypes by bending over and letting men think they want to be spanked,' Effy decided to help. Her unwavering gaze made Naomi feel like she was completely naked.

One of the girls from the sofa spoke up for the first time, having watched the entire three-way exchange, 'There's a photo-shoot tomorrow afternoon at the Fit Magazine studio on Charles Street. Effy says you've been there before. You're going to help us get in.'

'What?' Naomi whipped round to face Effy, 'How? And ... why should I? ... whoever you are, ' Naomi asked glancing at the anonymous girl.

'Because this is the only way you can make a difference now. You've lost your job. You're gonna have a tag on your head for at least two years. You're completely neutered,' Marie answered.

Naomi looked towards Effy for guidance. She just stared back, her mouth twisted slightly as if she was remembering a joke she'd heard earlier that day.

Naomi huffed, 'And how do you know I can even get you in?' she asked. 'Not that I would anyway,' she added.

'Come on Naoms,' Effy said, that strange smile twisting further at the corners, 'Give us a little credit. You've had the editor by the balls before.'

It wasn't a lie. During the past few years she had made 'Fit magazine' her own personal nemesis. Everything about the trashy lads' mag infuriated her, from the half-naked woman on the front to the shameless gender biased advertising on the back. It was harmful, degenerative, outdated and misogynistic propaganda, and Naomi had almost pinned the editor down with a sexual assault charge before he greased himself up and wriggled out of it at the last minute. How Effy knew this, however, remained a mystery.

'Look, even if I did want to help you, which I don't, by the way,' Naomi began, 'I've just got out of prison. Breaking and entering isn't exactly high on my list of priorities right now. And don't get me started on how much _you_ are weirding me out right now,' she added, jabbing a finger in Effy's direction.

'I'll make you a deal,' Marie said, clearly having prepared for Naomi's flat-out refusal. 'All we need is the alarm system disarmed, which, by the way, you could do by fucking daylight for god's sake. By the time we get in there you can have left the country, for all we care. If we're caught your name won't be mentioned.'

Naomi felt the scales tipping in her mind. Her resolute, crime-free stance was steadily being out-weighed by the now feasible prospect of finally nailing the slimy perpetrator of that horrendous magazine.

'On one condition,' came the clause.

The sinking feeling of dread balanced out the scales again.

'You help us one more time in the future. No questions asked,' Marie finished.

Naomi clenched her fists. She tried to tell herself it was a huge mistake, and it would only land her back in prison; but she couldn't seem to quiet her own excitement. She felt the adrenalin coursing through her at the mere thought of risking her own freedom for the greater good. She felt strangely noble. And, the glue that held Marie's whole pitch together, was that Naomi would never have the chance to go through the legal channels to enforce change after what had happened.

She heard a clink as the metal tray of the scales dipped to the floor.

'Okay,' she said finally.

Marie's shark smile grew menacingly across her face. Effy nodded her approval, her expression unflinching.

Naomi sat heavily down on the unoccupied sofa, trying to calm the sudden rapid pumping of her heart. 'So what do you guys call yourself then? You got a name?'

Marie shrugged, 'Not yet. You got any suggestions?'

Naomi furrowed her brow as if deep in thought. 'How about the Nut-twister Sisters?' she pitched.

The girls looked at one another. 'Bit aggressive, that.'

...


	4. Chapter 4

**Greetings and thanks :) **

**Right then, this is probably the longest chapter I have ever/ will ever write. It's actually two chapters sort of squished together. But I think I've dragged out the intro enough ;) **

**Hope you like it.**

**Have a nice day

* * *

**

Chapter Four: part 1

Every Sunday evening, when her mother called, she would ask Emily the same question. 'Are you still between jobs?' And as she had done for the past three months, Emily would shake her head (even though her Mum couldn't see) and she would say 'No. Nothing's come up yet.'

Her Mum would like to know if she'd even been looking.

Emily would like to know what the hell she thought she'd been doing.

'Katie said they needed an extra pair of hands at the studio,' her Mum informed her during that Sunday's phone call. 'Apparently there's a big push for a deadline and they're having to pay a whole team overtime to cover it.'

'I don't want to work with Katie Mum,' Emily whined.

'Beggars can't be choosers Emily,' her Mum replied, falling back on her favourite cliché. 'Katie's very graciously offered to help you out. I think you should take the offer.'

Emily rolled her eyes, 'I don't need her help.'

'Well you're not getting very far on your own are you? How _is_ your writing going?'

Emily sighed. As accepting as Sam was, she could see the resentment forming behind her eyes when she would return home from a difficult day to find Emily doing nothing to earn money other than tap out a few average sounding sentences on a keyboard only to delete them afterwards. 'Okay. When is it?' Emily grudgingly accepted.

'Tomorrow afternoon,' her Mum told her.

'Tomorrow? I can't,' Emily said quickly, 'I'm meeting with the caterers for the wedding.'

The other end went still and silent for a prolonged moment. 'Well,' the voice spoke eventually, 'you'll just have to meet with them another time. You need to get your priorities straight Emily.'

Emily nervously chewed at a fingernail as Sam rounded the corner into the hall. 'How was the Kraken?' she asked.

'Got me a job, tomorrow afternoon,' Emily answered, looking up with wide eyes to gauge her girlfriend's reaction.

'But that's when you're meeting the caterers.'

'I'll have to reschedule.'

'That's just fucking typical,' Sam said, suddenly annoyed, 'I bet _she_-' Sam gestured at the limp inanimate phone dangling on its chord between Emily's fingers, 'planned this on purpose. She does absolutely everything she can to get in our way.'

Emily shook her head, 'No, she didn't even know,' she said all in a rush.

Sam's face was sceptical. Emily felt like she had just been read her rights and was about to be clipped into handcuffs. And not in a fun way. Sam didn't approve of that kind of behaviour. Saw it as undermining her work in some way. Said her uniform inspired quite enough wolf-whistles and cajoling from idiot men enquiring as to when she was going to 'take it off' and give them a dance. Though, the joke would be on them, Emily mused. Sam was a terrible dancer. All elbows and awkwardness.

'Emily? Are you listening to me?' the officer asked.

'Sorry ... just,' the world whooshed back to Emily. 'You know I hate arguing with her. It's easier to just agree.'

Sam sighed melodramatically, but Emily decided to stand firm. Her teenage relationship with her mother had been turbulent at best. She did not want to sabotage the eerily peaceful arrangement they had reached, where personal enquiries were kept to subjects such as employment prospects and opinions on the weather. It seemed they had both learned to keep their own frustrations with each other in check.

'Always the peace-keeper,' Sam said, a note of sadness in her voice.

'Well, don't want you whipping out the old handcuffs on me do I?' Emily attempted to scrape some humour together.

'Don't start Em,' Sam warned.

Emily didn't. She looked down at her wrists. Small and girlish. She could just slip out of them anyway.

'So how was Josie?' Emily asked, following Sam back into the kitchen to begin clearing the table of their dinner things.

'Oh you know Josie,' Sam answered.

Emily did, in fact, not know Josie at all.

'Always telling stories,' Sam continued. 'Could barely get a word in edgeways. She's excited about the wedding though.'

The plates clattered bad-temperedly as Emily stuffed them brusquely into the metal grid of the dishwasher.

'What about that girl?' Emily attempted to breach the question as casually as possible, '... Naomi, was it?

Emily's mind had been behind prison bars ever since Sam had uttered the five syllables that fired forgotten synapses in her brain and engaged old mechanisms within her body. She had googled the name the second Sam had left for work. After trawling through over thirty pages of links concerned with the model that couldn't seem to stay out of the papers, Emily came across the employment listings for a small organisation called Women for Justice. It identified Naomi Campbell as the Head of Fundraising and Development, and further up the list, a certain Gina Campbell as the Chief Executive. The website gave her very little other information, other than prompting her several times to 'donate now!'

'Yeah just your classic protest gone bad really,' Sam answered Emily's question. 'Was meant to be this gender equality demonstration but it got rowdy.'

Sam paused.

'Why are you so interested anyway?' she asked, a ladle pointed accusatorily in Emily's direction. 'That's the second time you've asked about her and at least the third time you've pulled that face.'

Emily panicked. She sometimes forgot her girlfriend was a police officer. Her deductive skills always managed to determine if there was something wrong with Emily just by looking at her, not to mention identifying within a millisecond of Emily entering the room whether she was under the influence of any illegal substances.

'I ...' Emily instinctively held her hands up at the brandished ladle, 'I think I went to school with her,' she admitted. 'I recognise the name.'

'Oh,' was all Sam said.

'I just wondered if it was her. It's ... sad,' Emily continued, 'that she ended up in prison.'

'Well, it was only for a few months,' Sam revealed, moving over to Emily and placing some pans in the sink. She flicked the tap on, the empty pans clanging like gongs as the water hit them. 'Breach of the peace, criminal damage, violent disorder,' Sam listed, 'the kind of stuff you only go to prison for if you can't pay the fines or you refuse the bind-over.'

Emily watched the pans filling up.

'But she got a few weeks tacked on to her sentence for being such a nightmare in prison.'

'What did she do?'

'Fought with officers, upset some of the girls in there,' Sam began to scrub one of the pans. 'Josie said she was dealing in there too. But they couldn't prove it. Searched her cell about five times while she was there but the sneaky cow always managed to palm the gear off in time to some other poor girl.'

Emily watched the dirty water slip greasily down through the plug hole.

'What was she like in school?' Sam asked. 'Was she a user then? ... or a dealer?'

Emily swallowed. 'I don't really remember,' she answered. 'I didn't really know her.'

* * *

A white light flashed across Emily's vision and she was blind.

'Jesus – fuck, Ow!' she cried out, clasping her hands to her eyes and doubling over.

'Hey! Get out of the lighting test Katie you'll bugger it!' a voice demanded.

Emily stood up straight, tentatively opening one eye, seeing nothing but blurry whiteness. 'I'm not Katie!' she shouted back. 'I'm fucking _blind_ though!' she added angrily, rubbing at her eyes in an effort to coax her vision back.

'Emily what are you doing? Get off the set.' Katie's familiar voice spoke with an equally displeased tone.

Emily felt a firm grip secured around the top of her arm as she was tugged to the right. She blinked rapidly several times and Katie's fuzzy-edged form steadily regained clarity. 'Look I only got you this job to shut Mum up, so can you please stop acting like a complete moron? Yeah?'

Emily shrugged away from her sister's grasp. 'I'm not,' she snapped back. 'You're lighting guy doesn't seem all that on the ball though.' Emily waved her own hand in front of face, checking she was still able to trace movement.

'Who, Ed?' Katie asked, looking at the heavy set boy who was busily adjusting a slide dial on the industrial lighting equipment that had attacked Emily. 'He's ... new.' She gave him a brazen smile and a wave.

He winked back at her.

Emily rolled her eyes. 'For fuck's sake Katie. Ever heard of separating business and pleasure?'

'Er ... no.'

Emily crossed her arms. The photo-shoot set was lit from all angles, bright and white like the rest of the building. Nowhere to hide. In front of the white screen there was a white box on which Katie was to pose. No materiality. Nothing you could reach out and touch. Just staged and draped flat, endless, white. To Emily, it felt like emptiness.

'What are you doing up here anyway?' Katie asked. 'You're meant to be helping with the computers. Go over there and help Gemma.' Katie shoved Emily away in the direction of a woman crouched on the floor in front of three laptops. Arteries of thick black cables trailed around her, duct-taped to the floor. The room was buzzing with the electrical energy of countless machines, but Emily couldn't feel anything in the air. It was as cold and still as the earth. She crouched down next to Gemma.

Gemma seemed to be having some difficulty with adjusting the computer so that it adequately interpreted the light colour from the set. Emily sat redundantly next to her, her knowledge of computers extending no further than how to add footnotes in Microsoft word, and her trouble-shooting techniques exhausted once she'd suggested turning it off and on. Bored and useless, she scanned the room for Katie, who she eventually located, perched like a lifeless tailor's dummy in front of a mirror against the right hand wall. Two people fussed around her with brushes and tongs. Katie remained still.

'Cocking thing!' Gemma suddenly shouted, making Emily jump. 'Ed! What are your Kelvin values now?'

Ed shouted something incomprehensible back.

Gemma sighed in frustration, tapping the mouse pad irritably as if pushing harder would solve her problem.

'Is there anyone I could call for you who would know?' Emily asked.

Gemma appeared to be thinking for a moment. 'Yeah you could try Rob. Use the office phone. I think he's in today.'

Emily nodded, standing up, grateful to actually have something to do.

'Dial hash nine-oh-nine. Tell him Gemma needs him to come to the first floor studio. Cheers doll.' Gemma turned her attention back to hammering her mouse pad.

Emily found an unoccupied phone on a deserted desk not far from where Katie was having makeup plastered across her face like she was a crack in the wall. She lifted the receiver. There was no dial tone. She stabbed at a few buttons. Still nothing. Emptiness.

'Katie!' Emily hissed in a loud whisper. 'Katie!' slightly louder.

'What?' Katie's eyes were closed as a violent shade of purple was brushed across her eyelids.

'The phone's are down. What should I do?' Emily tapped the receiver. It sounded hollow and plastic.

'How should I know?' Katie answered, her speech hampered by trying to move her face as little as possible. It was how Emily imagined mannequins talked when they came alive at night in department stores. 'Check the connection in the plant room.'

Emily lay the receiver down gently on the desk. The buzz of activity in the studio made her feel strangely distant. There was something oddly comforting about closing the studio door behind her and walking along the quiet, empty corridor. Just for second, it felt like she was walking a path between two worlds.

...

* * *

Chapter Four: part 2

'Naomi love,' the voice floated through the kitchen and out to where Naomi stood by the door. 'Where are you going?' Gina emerged in the hall to face her. She was cupping a mug of steaming tea in her hands, blowing across the surface. The steam puffed away from the liquid like fog drifting above a swamp.

Naomi fidgeted on the spot, resisting the urge to check her watch. 'I've got ... a meeting.'

Gina raised her eyebrows, 'Oh that's wonderful love,' she said. 'For a job?'

Naomi nodded, 'Yeah. Erm ... you remember Marie? That intern we had?'

Gina's eyes widened, 'You mean Mad-dog Marie? That pit-bull we put on t-shirt duty? Please don't tell me that's who you're meeting.'

Naomi looked at her shoes. 'Well, she's just got some ideas about how I can move on.'

'I bet she does,' Gina said, 'And I bet all of them involve making DIY petrol bombs.'

Naomi rolled her eyes, 'For god's sake mum, I'm not a fucking idiot. I've only just got out of prison I'm not going to go and do something stupid.'

Gina looked dubiously into her tea, not meeting Naomi's gaze.

'Do you really trust me that little Mum?' Naomi asked, a surge of teenage inadequacies rushing to the surface.

Gina sighed, 'Of course not dear.' She looked up at her daughter. 'I'm sure you know what you're doing. Just be careful.'

Naomi gave a small head-bob to her Mum before stepping out and slamming the door behind her. So Marie was a little unconventional, well so was Emmeline Pankhurst. Let's face it, the British suffragette movement wouldn't have got very far if she had said 'these iron railings are uncomfortable, think I'll go home and start dinner'.

Resolute, Naomi zipped up her coat to her chin and made her way to Charles Street, where her future crackled across the solder of an alarm system's circuit board.

...

We buy on the basis of images. It's not our fault. It's the world we've been indoctrinated into. Naomi pushed through the revolving door, which reminded her all too much of a meat-grinder, and wandered into the reception, her grubby trainers squeaking on the stark white polished floor. It was a bright, double height space, with the expanse of white walls interrupted by sparse, angular furniture. The wall behind the reception desk was entirely glazed, affording glimpses of the wooden office partitions of the ground floor, which in turn disguised the hermetic caissons of the depths.

A receptionist smiled vacantly at her from behind the desk. 'Here for the alarm testing?' she asked.

Marie had thought ahead. She had phoned the office earlier that day claiming to be from the security company that installed the alarm system. She had informed the receptionist that there was to be a standard maintenance check on all their systems following reported malfunctions from a few of their clients. A technician would be sent round later that day.

'Yeah,' Naomi said. She didn't really have time to wonder why the receptionist automatically assumed she was neither a model nor an office-worker. Something about her must scream maintenance. 'High maintenance,' she thought scathingly, before speaking to the receptionist. 'We've had some ... er ... reports about-'

'Right this way,' the receptionist interrupted Naomi's non-consequential mutterings. 'Straight down the hall,' the receptionist said, pointing Naomi past the ground floor offices, 'when you get to those double fire-doors, take a left and follow the fire exit signs. Go through the green doors and that's where the control panel is, okay?'

Naomi nodded, trying to remember.

'Will you need the main power switched off?' the receptionist asked before Naomi embarked upon her quest.

'Er ... no,' Naomi guessed.

'Good, because it's photo-shoot day and the photographer will just go berserk if we interrupt him,' the receptionist laughed like she had just told a joke.

'Right,' Naomi answered. 'Don't want to disturb a master at work.'

'Exactly. They're so touchy these arty types,' the receptionist continued. Naomi wondered if she was lonely in that white room all day.

'Well I'd better ... go ... do ... the thing that I do,' Naomi said.

'Of course of course,' the receptionist said brightly. 'Remember: fire-doors, left, fire-exit sign, green doors. 'Kay?'

'Gotcha.'

Of course it was never going to be that simple. The security system that Naomi had made herself familiar with the last time she was in the vicinity had been replaced by something sleeker and distinctly more digital. She wiggled her fingers nervously before removing the plastic outer casing. It lifted up and off the wall. Naomi placed it on the ground. She was used to dealing with simple switch set-up alarms that involved no more technical expertise than cutting the correct wire (which was always so clearly marked it was almost as if it wanted to be disarmed). At most she was expecting one of those embedded magnet alarms that trigger the system when they notice that the window's wide open.

But no.

Typically, Naomi found herself rather out of luck.

'Marie?' Naomi hissed down the phone she whipped out of her pocket.

'Have you done it?' Marie answered.

'No I haven't bloody done it,' Naomi snapped. 'It's a fucking wireless alarm.'

'And?'

'And? Well, _and_ I want out of this sodding deal!'

'Naomi, mate, it's too late to back out.'

'What do you mean?'

'Well,' Marie paused, 'Look, I don't wanna have to dob you in or anything but-'

'Oh fuck you Marie,' Naomi bit back, 'Fuck you right in the arse.'

'You sure there's nothing you can do?'

Naomi chewed her bottom lip. 'I can go back and ask the receptionist if she's got the code for the alarm.' She was scrabbling, the sound of her cell door slamming shut at lights-out banging repeatedly in her mind.

Naomi heard Marie suck a breath in through her teeth, 'Too risky. Makes it look like a fake operation. Plus it gives her more time to get to know your face.'

Naomi ran a hand through her hair. She could feel the sweat beading on her forehead. She felt sticky and nervous and her neck and arms prickled with the tension.

'Look, these wireless alarms, they work by automatically connecting to the phone line and calling a response centre,' Naomi explained, a faintest scratching of an idea clicking dimly in her mind.

'So?'

'So ... if the phone line's down then the response centre won't be called. So no one will be told the alarm's going off.'

'Really?' Naomi sensed Marie's tone growing friendlier, 'So that's it then? Do that!'

'The internal alarm will still go off though. I don't know how to stop that. If you can get in and out in time before someone hears it and decides to call the police then you'll be fine.'

Marie seemed to be considering the option. The other end of the line stayed quiet for longer than Naomi felt comfortable with. She twisted neck round to check the green doors. No sign of movement.

'Okay. Kill the phones.'

Naomi released the breath she'd been holding, 'You sure?'

'Yeah, if there's really nothing else you can do.'

'Okay ... and ... our deal, it's still good yeah? You won't mention my name?'

'Yeah, yeah, just get on with it.'

Naomi's phone bleeped the three tones of its 'call ended' alert and Naomi immediately began scanning the plant room for the main phone connection. With trembling hands she traced veins of treacle-coloured wires back to the control panel. Finding the correct cable, she drew in a shaky breath, checking the door again. The emptiness of the room crowded her, looking over her shoulder, breathing down her neck.

Naomi ran a clammy hand across her warm face. She took a shaky breath and clipped the wire. Nothing happened. No alarms were triggered. No lights went out. No crackling arc of electricity shot out of the control panel to strike her dead where she stood.

She backed away from the panel slowly, lifting her arms to push the green doors open and flee the scene, when she was forced backwards by the doors opening out towards her.

She stopped still, as motionless and silent as a nocturnal animal under the glare of artificial light, the wire-cutters clutched incriminatingly in her fisted hand.

Skidding to an abrupt halt as she burst through the doors, a girl stopped just short of impaling herself upon the wielded pliers. She stared at the weapon momentarily, before lifting her gaze to their owner.

Naomi dropped the pliers.

They landed with a clatter at Emily's feet.

'Jesus fucking Christ!' the expression left Naomi's mouth before her brain had time to engage.

Emily blinked several times, as if trying to clear her vision of an affliction of the eye. 'Naomi?' More blinking. Naomi felt her name hanging unanswered in the air. 'What the fuck are you doing here?' she asked, glancing around the room briefly, 'In the home security section of the plant room?'

'I'm ... the maintenance,' Naomi stammered. 'I do maintaining ... alarms ... and that.'

Naomi had to claw back her sense of reality from back over the edge of the earth. She felt like she had stumbled into an intangible dream world. Emily's chest rose and fell as she alternated her incredulous gaze between Naomi and the control panel that hung open from the wall like a dislocated jaw. Breathing. Just breathing in and out.

'Maintenance?' Emily asked. Her perfectly sculpted brow crinkled in confusion, as if tightening around her thoughts. 'Are you here to fix the phones? Because they've only just stopped work-'

Naomi could almost see the connections fusing together in Emily's mind. She swallowed guiltily.

'You did this!' Emily said, noticeably restraining her voice from shouting, pointing at the pliers which had sprung open like a vicious mouth upon hitting the floor.

'I did not!' Naomi argued. 'I was fixing the alarm.' The notion of running away only just entered her mind, like she had snapped out of hypnosis.

'Piss off,' Emily wafted away her defence like it was smoke in the air. 'You cut the phone-line,' she said. She paused thoughtfully. 'Mind if I ask why?'

'Look Em,' Naomi said, her panic making her throat small and her tongue huge, 'Please. Don't say anything?'

Emily's eyes widened and she twisted her palms up to face the ceiling, 'Well, what am I supposed to do?'

Naomi put her hands to her face, distraught. Emily looked so soft and smooth. Her eyes were wide and searching, flicking across Naomi's face like they had lost something. Naomi felt her insides twist and murmur like something was wrenching them in a vice.

'Please Em,' she begged, 'Please?'

Emily looked down at her feet as if they knew something she didn't. 'Fuck ... Naomi ...'

'Emily,' she said again. Every nuance of the way her name felt and sounded rippled through her body.

Emily closed her eyes briefly.

Naomi stared.

'Okay,' she said, before opening her eyes again, 'Get out of here quick though.'

Naomi didn't say another word. But as she darted past Emily towards the doors she extended a flat palm out to Emily's shoulder, pressing briefly down and squeezing ever so slightly, her eyes bearing intensely into Emily's for a split second, and then she was gone.

...


	5. Chapter 5

**Hello! I won't keep you for long, but I want to make a quick point. I do not and never will endorse the kind of stuff that I talk about later on in this chapter. These are not my views. And I do not intend to offend anyone. It is all fiction intended to add to the drama of the story. I don't know if it's necessary to point that out, but I thought I would just in case.**

**As always I send you all many thanks for the comments and hearty encouragements to please keep them coming :) they really do brighten the rainy days. **

**Side notes:**

**To Baaramewe: I agree that Naomi is being stupid and selfish and Emily is unmotivated to get a job, preferring to remain very dependent on her girlfriend because it's easier. It is all part of my plan *plan laugh*. And Katie is distinctly shorter than Kate Moss. But in this story she is a glamour model ... not like a catwalk model. The kind of 'it' girl that poses for trashy magazines. Hopefully height is less of an issue in that particular branch of modelling, but I don't profess to be an expert. Hope to hear from you again :)**

**And on a final note, thanks and respect to Hyperfitched for writing and completing her story. It was fabulous and I'll miss it very much. **

**Have a nice day**

**

* * *

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Chapter Five

Emily hadn't even noticed that Sam was hours late.

It felt like the world was winding backwards. Back and back ... to a place and time where she almost didn't recognise herself.

When she had first known Naomi, all those years ago in school, she had been convinced that she looked like winter. Her neck and shoulders were like the untouched snow in the morning that could be lying as thin as paper or a thick as fur; her slender fingers and arms were like the naked the trees, unmasked and fragile; but her softness, her taste, it was as intense and unanticipated as the sudden heat of a patch of low-hanging sun: out of place, but thoroughly captivating.

But seeing her today, flustered and panicked and burning red, reminded her of something else entirely. She wasn't winter anymore. She wasn't the warm earth embedded under its blanket of ice, recuperating and regenerating into something new and beautiful. She was the earth after all the water had gone. Dried up and evaporated and the ground had been left cracked and brittle. A lonely little planet circling a cruel and unforgiving sun.

Emily wondered briefly if it was prison that had done it, if it had gradually wrung her dry. But she knew deep down that it wasn't. She knew Naomi too well. She knew what her devotion and her passion was capable of. It had finally burnt her out.

And for the first time in years, her thoughts fell to Freddie. And Sophia. Torched by their own.

The sound of the door made her jump. She had no idea how long she had been sitting at the kitchen table, staring into space. She glanced quickly at the clock on the wall. The first initial shivers of panic shuddered through her body.

'Baby where have you been?' Emily asked, standing up instantly, finally catching up with the world.

She saw Sam in the hall, looking tired and frustrated. Her fingers pushed and wrenched across her eyelids as she rubbed them. It creased and folded her skin like she was made of paper.

'I've got some bad news,' Sam said, shrugging off her coat and hanging it carefully on the hook near the door. 'It's Katie.'

Emily's heartbeat leaped instantly into her throat and her stomach knotted painfully. 'Oh god what?'

Sam quickly shook her head, rushing to her girlfriend and tugging her into an embrace. 'No not like that,' she said hurriedly, realising the implications of her words, 'She's okay.'

Emily tried to shrug from Sam's arms but she held her there as she continued to speak.

'There was a break in at Katie's studio. Really really unpleasant vandalism. Death threats and everything.'

Emily's slowly unfurling stomach knotted right back up again. Naomi. She finally sprang free from Sam, her shining eyes as wide and innocent as she could make them.

'You were there earlier today babe,' Sam continued, 'Did you see _anything_?'

Emily focused on Sam's left eye and then her right eye. Death threats? Could she really have done that?

'Emily?' Sam prompted. 'Anything at all?'

'No,' she said finally. She heard her own voice crack. 'Can't think of anything.' The words sounded hollow in her chest.

Sam nodded sadly but acceptingly.

Emily shrugged, as if she wished she could help, but her thoughts had already drifted somewhere else. That last burning stare Naomi had given Emily had seared its imprint onto her brain.

Emily then realised what it was that was troubling her so much: not that Naomi was no longer winter, but the fact that she had escaped before it had melted.

...

* * *

Naomi was so angry that she could feel it burning the backs of her eyes and throat. It surged and crashed around inside her like molten iron. It always seemed to be her body's first response to anything. Every heartbeat, every action, every sense, all internalised and scrunched into an infinite anger. The anger had seethed inside her all of last night after she had fled home, crying and shaking like an ill-tempered child, curled up on her bed and wished away the feeling that kept her from sleep.

She burst into Marie's pub, stamping up the stairs and forcing herself through the door at first floor.

'Ever heard of knocking?' Effy swung round on the swivel chair again, as if she had been sat there ever since Naomi had left, unmoving, and reactivated with her presence. The room was quiet and dark.

'Jesus, fuck,' Naomi jumped in shock, 'Will you _quit _doing that?'

Effy remained static.

'Where the fuck is Marie?' Naomi asked.

Effy shrugged, 'How should I know?' Her mouth twisted slightly into what Naomi suspected was a smirk. 'How did it go?' she asked.

Naomi got the distinct feeling that Effy knew exactly how it had gone. 'You knew she was going to be there didn't you?'

'I don't know what you mean.'

Naomi rolled her eyes in frustration. She folded her arms and glanced around the empty room. Eventually her gaze fell back to Effy, who continued to stare at her. 'What the fuck are you doing here anyway?' she asked irritably. 'You're like ... clever. Why are you wasting your time with idiots like Marie?'

'Why are you?' Effy shot back, without a moment's pause.

Naomi opened her mouth, but her answer was apparently absent from the conversation. 'I ... have my reasons,' she said eventually. Poor, she thought, even by her recent standards.

'If you say so.' Effy replied, 'If you're classing an obsolete egotistical vendetta against an inconsequential nobody as a reason.'

Naomi glared. '... no.'

'Was it worth it?' Effy asked. Her unflinching responses made Naomi shift uncomfortably.

'Yes,' she said awkwardly after a pause.

'Interesting,' Effy said, before reaching for a newspaper clipping from the desk behind her. 'Was it worth this?'

Naomi snatched the thin, greasy-feeling page irritably. The churning feeling of panic in her stomach had already started even before she looked at the article. She swallowed and dropped her gaze to the paper.

She felt instantly sick.

**'DEPRAVED RADICALS DEFACE PIN-UP PHOTOS**

_The glamour model Katie Fitch was reported to be 'shaken and terrified' at the extremist attack on her workplace that occurred last night. The 'Fit Magazine' front-page star had taken part in a photo-shoot yesterday afternoon for this month's edition, due out Thursday. The radicals, now thought to be members of an unnamed feminist group, broke into the studio and proceeded to mutilate the images of the model by scratching out the eyes and mouth, and superimposing images of violent sexual acts upon the photos. The studio was then graffitied with several threatening messages, mostly directed at Fitch, some menacing enough to confine the model to her home under police protection. The motivation of these attacks is yet unknown, though police are investigating the legitimacy of a maintenance procedure carried out on the alarm system that failed to operate correctly at the time of the break in.'_

Naomi let the piece of paper slip from her grasp. It floated to the floor like a dry, crisp leaf.

'Katie was there?' she let the question fall from her mouth. It dropped and shattered in the silence of the room.

The faintest frown broke Effy's porcelain expression. 'Yeah ... didn't you see her?'

Naomi's mouth felt dry. '...No,' she said hoarsely. Her answer scratched and clawed in her throat. 'I saw Emily.'

'Emily?' Effy repeated.

Naomi hated Effy at that moment. She hated her because she knew she was smiling. Not visibly. But somewhere inside. She was fucking smiling.

'Probably should've found out what they had in mind before you helped them, huh?' was Effy's unsympathetic overview.

Naomi's brain was whirring. Then she was shaking. She was shaking and sweating and everything had gone blurry. The walls, Effy's face, that _un-fucking-moving_ face. Blurred.

Because Emily would think she'd done it.

...

* * *

Emily hadn't slept. She knew she wouldn't. Her mind had been ticking over everything all night. Sam's arm draped across her chest had felt so heavy and constricting it had felt like she couldn't breathe. When they had sat together in the kitchen at breakfast, Sam chattering about the procedures of the investigation they would have to go through to find out who was behind the break in, it was all Emily could do to nod occasionally whilst chewing calmly at her toast.

'Oh,' Sam added as she took her bowl over to the sink. 'I rearranged the appointment with the caterers by the way.'

Emily finally swallowed the disagreeable morsel of toast she had been chewing unenthusiastically for several minutes. 'What?'

Sam began scrubbing the bowl under running water. 'Yeah, someone's going to pop round this morning. About half nine?'

Emily rolled her eyes. 'This morning?'

Sam nodded. The sound of the gushing water hammered through Emily's mind. 'Will you stop fucking doing that for a second?' she snapped. 'You don't have to clean everything the second it's used.'

'What the fuck is your problem?' Sam asked, dropping the bowl into the sink. The sound made Emily flinch. 'You've been acting weird for days. Are you going to tell me what's wrong?'

Emily folded her arms. 'Nothing's wrong,' she muttered. 'I just didn't sleep well.'

Sam shook her head. 'Fine.' She dried her hands and walked across the room to the door. 'If you feel like actually talking to me, I'll be home at six.'

The front door banged shut. Emily tried to close her eyes briefly, but they burnt with a bright blue stare. She inhaled a deep breath. This feeling wasn't new: this feeling of falling with nothing to hold onto to stop from falling. It was everything her new safe life had been cultivated to protect her from: her strong, dependable, law-enforcing girlfriend, her stable marriage-bound relationship, her peculiar stale-mate with her mother. She thought she had grown and stretched and healed beyond her first, earth-shattering, unharnessed fall.

She shook her head, the way Sam always did when she was being tiresome or awkward. She wasn't going to let one brief and random encounter with Naomi spoil anything, even if it did involve her making the spectacularly poor decision of letting herself become an accessory to a crime.

The doorbell buzzed. It made the sound of a fly frying on a fluorescent light.

Emily stood up and went to the door, taking a moment to compose a smile on her face to welcome the friendly caterer that was going to help her plan her wedding day. The day where she would get married to the person she loved and had built a life with.

Her hand closed around the handle and she pulled the door open towards her.

In the low winter sun, casting a long shadow against the ground, stood Naomi. Her bottom lip was sucked tightly up under her teeth, her fingers gripping nervously at the sleeves of her jumper, tugging the material securely over her hands. Her eyes were bright pin-points, staring directly through Emily's eyes and into her soul.

'Hi,' she said.

Emily shut the door. She turned and leant back heavily against the solid wood, clasping a hand to her forehead. That was, most definitely, not the caterer.

The doorbell buzzed again, this time accompanied by a shout. 'Emily! Please? Talk to me?' It buzzed again. 'Please? ... I'm not going 'til you talk to me!'

Emily turned back to face the door. Slowly, she opened it once more.

Naomi was framed perfectly in the elegant rectangle of the door frame. She had a hand poised over the door buzzer, which dropped quickly to her side. The corners of her delicate mouth rose up into the ghost of a smile.

Emily leant against the open door. Whatever Naomi was now, whatever she had become, somehow she would always be an inescapable part of her. Now; then; always. Oh god, she thought helplessly, I am ruined.

...


	6. Chapter 6

**Well I banged this chapter out rather sharpish because I'm moving to London this weekend (scary) and I don't know how soon I'll get the chance to update again. So I hope you like it. Let me know if you do/don't/would like some pie. It's all good to know.**

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Chapter six

...

'Can I come in?'

The question steamed in the cold air.

Naomi watched Emily run her hand up the worn wood of the door. 'I'm not sure you should.'

Naomi's raised eyebrows shifted into sadness. 'It wasn't me you know,' she said. 'I would never do that.'

'Do what?'

'Do that to Katie. It wasn't me. All I did was cut the phones.' Naomi's words all stumbled out very quickly, like each one was in more of a hurry than the last.

Emily sighed. 'Fuck's sake Naomi,' she said half-heartedly, 'You don't fucking learn do you?'

Naomi wanted to launch into a tirade at that moment about how she had learnt. How she tried every day to make the world better. But instead she looked at the ground and shrugged. Emily could always silence her. Drop her to her knees and squeeze all breath out of her body and strip her of anything she ever owned.

The low sun did nothing to warm the freezing air that steadily numbed her nose and ears.

'I just wanted you to know,' Naomi said, finally drawing together the courage to look back up into Emily's searching eyes. The eyes kept searching. Endlessly. As if they knew there was something else there, and they were desperate to find it. Naomi quickly turned before they could. 'That's all,' she said.

'Naomi!' barked an abruptly irritated voice.

Naomi turned back round to be confronted with a suddenly annoyed Emily.

'What the hell?' was the demand.

'Excuse me?' Naomi asked.

'Seriously, you just got me involved in a fucking _crime scene _... in an attack against my sister!' even as Emily said it, it sounded ridiculous. 'You can't just turn up here and say 'oo sorry, wasn't me' you know.'

Naomi resisted the urge to ask why the hell not.

'I don't know what the hell you've got yourself mixed up in ... but you need to sort it out because I'm not going to get blamed for this,' Emily assured her.

'Well ... it was your decision to let me go,' Naomi began, 'which I'm very grateful for by the way,' she added very quickly as she saw Emily flare up in front of her. 'But I really can't be held responsible for your actions.'

Emily looked incredulous. 'Then how come I'm suddenly responsible for yours?'

Naomi could hear her heartbeat pound in her ears and throat then. She could hear it because she knew what Emily was going to say next.

'I'm going to have to say something.'

'Emily ... no, please,' Naomi swallowed back the quiver in her voice. She swallowed back the anger in her body. '... Emily.'

'I have to.' The three words stung like cracks of a whip. Emily's sad eyes made her lose all hope.

'Ladies!' A friendly exclamation interrupted the moment, and a hand clapped down intrusively on Naomi's shoulder, making her jump forwards and yelp. She looked up at the owner of the hand. It belonged to a tall clean-cut man with balding hair shaved close. He was dressed up smartly in a grey suit and an offensively pink tie, a briefcase tucked under one of his arms. Behind him she saw a car on the drive emblazoned with the logo 'Angel's Delight.' She rolled her eyes. She wasn't in the mood for a slanging match with a Jehovah's Witness right now.

'Hi I'm Josh,' the man extended a hairy hand out to Emily, who shook it tentatively. 'I'm your event planner, I spoke to Sam earlier this morning.'

'Emily,' she replied. Naomi noticed the uncertain wavering in her smoky voice.

'So you must be Sam,' Josh cheerfully took Naomi's hand and shook it. 'Shall we go inside?'

Emily opened her mouth to correct Josh's innocent mistake, but Naomi quickly seized her chance.

'Yes let's,' she said. 'This way Josh,' and she stepped boldly inside the house, striding past Emily, ignoring the hot feeling of the glare she was casting at her back. The house smelt like clean sheets and bleach. Naomi screwed her nose up.

'Lovely house you've got here,' Josh commented idly as Naomi tried to find the living room.

'Thanks, we like it,' she said sweetly, poking her head round a doorway and into a room on the left, smiling to herself as she found it to contain sofas and a television. She cast a look back at Emily who hadn't moved from the front door. 'Come on Em. Quick sharp.'

She led Josh into the room, hearing Emily shuffle bad-temperedly down the corridor after them. She sat down on the nearest sofa, sinking down gratefully into a reclining position, and putting her feet up on the coffee table. The house wasn't quite to her taste. The curtains had tassels. The cushions on the chairs had buttons. There was a small model of a china dog on the window sill. And everything was just a bit too clean. But it was nice enough, Naomi supposed.

Emily walked into the room with a thunderous look. She pointedly sat on a different sofa to Naomi.

'Right then,' Naomi said, tapping her thighs as if she meant business. 'What are we doing?'

Josh flipped open the briefcase he had been carrying, lifting out folders and magazine and photos. He spread them out on the coffee table like a messy bouquet. 'Right, so how many guests did you say you were expecting?'

Josh's question was met with silence. He looked expectantly at Naomi.

'Um ...' she said, 'I can't quite remember. Emily?'

''Bout a hundred,' she muttered.

Naomi whistled. 'Big spender.'

'Okay,' Josh said, scribbling something down in a pad. 'And Sam specified it was an open-air reception with marquees for dining on the phone ...' he continued to write before he looked up. 'That should be fine with a wedding in May,' he grinned. 'But I'd keep your fingers crossed for sun just in case.'

Naomi felt like her heart had stopped. 'Wedding?' she asked instantly before she could stop herself.

Josh looked at her quizzically.

She quickly checked herself and cleared her throat. 'Right ... wedding of course.' But she frowned again immediately, unable to process this information. 'Wedding?' she asked again.

Josh gave a slightly awkward chuckle. 'Sure you want to marry this one?' he asked Emily jokingly, jerking his head in Naomi's direction.

Emily smiled vaguely and avoided all eye contact with everyone. 'Yeah ... of course.'

Josh returned to his briefcase. 'I get it,' he assured them, 'It can all be a bit overwhelming. There's so much to plan and organise and _pay_ for.' He looked sympathetically at Naomi. 'But I'm here to make that all a bit easier for you both. You're in good hands.' He winked.

Naomi felt sick.

She looked around the room she was sat in with new eyes. Those fucking horribly kitsch curtain tassels, those nasty cheap looking buttons on the cushions, that ghastly little china dog. And Emily. Sat quietly on the far end of the sofa, gazing studiously at the hands she had folded in her lap. Hands that she was going to run over her _fiancé's _naked skin, in their cosy little living room full of their tasteless crap, with their little china guard dog keeping watch out into the street.

'Sam?'

Even the name made Naomi's insides twist.

'Sam?'

Naomi shook herself. 'Yeah?' she met Josh's concerned gaze.

'Are you okay?' he asked.

'Yeah ... sorry, just suddenly felt a bit nauseous.' She looked at Emily, who this time stared firmly back at her, as if she had nothing to be ashamed of.

'So before we get onto menu planning, are there any allergies or aversions I should know of?' Josh asked. 'Vegetarians? Vegans? Lactose intolerance?'

Emily cleared her throat, tearing her eyes away from the staring match Naomi had engaged her in. 'Yeah, Sam's allergic to prawns.'

Josh nodded and picked up his pen.

'No I'm not,' Naomi said quickly.

Josh's pen hovered above the page.

'Yes you are, dear,' Emily said, through gritted teeth.

'_No I'm not,_' Naomi replied firmly. 'Josh? I'm not.'

'She is!' Emily closed her eyes in frustration. Naomi smirked. 'They make her really sick.'

Josh looked over at Naomi.

'Well ... they did. But I've realised that ... they don't.' Naomi told him.

'We'll come back to it,' Josh said, nervously glancing from one girl to the other.

'Would you excuse us for a moment Josh?' Emily asked, standing up.

'By all means,' Josh answered. He sounded grateful.

'Sam?' Emily said, jerking her head in the direction of the corridor.

'_Emily_.' Naomi mimicked, getting up off the sofa and following her out of the room.

Emily led her swiftly into the kitchen, slamming the door forcefully behind her.

'What _the fuck_ do you think you're doing?' she asked, whipping round to Naomi instantly, her cheeks tinged red and her eyes dark and torrid with anger.

'It was the only way I could get you to fucking _talk_ to me!' Naomi shouted back.

Emily rolled her eyes at Naomi's apparent absurdity. 'Did it occur to you that maybe I didn't want to talk to you?' she said, flailing her arms around at nothing in particular. 'And now look at me. I've got you as my _fucking fiancé_!'

Naomi pursed her lips.

Emily stared at her.

Naomi felt a peculiar fluttering in her stomach that felt foreign and familiar at the same time. Her tightened lips loosened and twisted upwards into a smile. She began to laugh, spluttering ungainly at first before launching into a fit of giggles. She was followed almost instantly by Emily, who snorted softly before her angry face split sideways into an adorable grin and she too began laughing uncontrollably. Naomi leant on the counter for support as her eyes filled with tears that spilled warmly onto her cheeks. Her stomach muscles began to ache.

She couldn't remember the last time she had laughed until it hurt.

Emily pushed her palms against her eyes, wiping away her own tears. The sound of laughter slowly died away like a tide retreating down a beach, but smiles lingered on their faces.

'Em,' Naomi ventured in the new silence, 'As my future wife ... I don't think you should grass me to the police. Or it's going to be a very lonely honeymoon.'

Emily snorted, 'Yeah ... right.' Her smile twitched as if it was about to grow. 'For richer and for poorer.'

'Amen.'

...


	7. Chapter 7

**Found time for one more update before the move :) loved the comments guys! See you on the other side.**

**Review maybe?**

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Chapter seven

...

'I should probably go ... shouldn't I?' Naomi asked the question in a hopeful way, as if she was willing Emily to prove her wrong.

Emily sighed. Whether she wanted to be or not, Naomi was right. 'Yeah,' she answered, trying not to register the fall in Naomi's face. She instead walked past her, out of the kitchen, into the hall and along to the front door. She heard Naomi follow her reluctantly, dragging her feet along the carpet.

'I am really sorry,' Naomi said as she stepped out of the door. Her foot made a soft tapping sound as it made contact with the cold flagstone outside. 'I didn't mean you to ever get mixed up in any of this.'

She meant those words. She meant them with every drop of blood in her body. Emily could tell. Looking into her eyes she could almost see someone she recognised.

'I know,' she said finally. 'It was a totally random fuck-up.' She paused, 'I mean ... you shouldn't have been doing it in the first place,' she observed, 'But, me being there was nothing to do with it.'

Naomi nodded; a melancholy little head bob that terminated in her looking at the ground. The winter sun glinted off the wisps of blonde hair that fluttered towards Emily in the cold breeze.

'Naomi?'

Naomi looked up.

'Be careful, okay?' Emily said. It was her turn to mean the words with everything she was.

It made Naomi smile.

They stood there like that for a moment, until the cold from outside began trickling through Emily's skin and coiling around her bones.

'Right, I'd better go ... er ... make the event planner's morning even more surreal then,' Emily joked.

Naomi laughed briefly, 'It'll be tough without me.'

That was true.

'Congratulations by the way,' Naomi said, almost as an afterthought.

Emily raised an eyebrow.

'On the wedding,' Naomi explained.

'Oh right ... yeah.' It was awkward. Emily didn't know whether to say thank you or not.

'I'm glad that you have someone,' Naomi said quietly, in a small voice that contradicted the bright blue of her eyes. 'I sure she's ... er ...' the words seemed to stick in her throat, 'lovely.'

Emily nodded with a smile, 'You'd hate her.'

'Already do.'

Naomi seemed deep in thought for a second, and Emily wondered briefly if there was ever an appropriate way to say goodbye to her. She barely had time to muse upon it before Naomi had leant up, pressing the swiftest, softest kiss to her cheek. Her nose and lips were cold, but her warm breath swathed the skin of Emily's cheek.

'Bye,' she said, moving back and turning from the door.

Emily said nothing.

She momentarily wondered how the hell Naomi found out where she lived, but she quickly dismissed it as inconsequential. It didn't matter. She wouldn't have been surprised if Naomi had just closed her eyes and let the current of the earth tow her to Emily's door. The invisible pull between them felt strained and taut as Naomi walked away.

Emily watched her go: retreating back into the sunlight, a beautiful haunted woman; a scared little child; a feral, traceless animal; a shadow drifting abstractedly along the ground.

...

* * *

Sam was quiet that night.

They ate practically in silence.

The sound of Sam's fork scraping along the china plate raked painfully through Emily's brain. She dragged her gaze along the offending piece of cutlery, up to the knotted bones of Sam's knuckles, and then across her slender arms, elbows, shoulders, skin and muscle and bone that she knew so well, then onwards, up her pale neck and eventually to her face. She caught Sam staring at her.

Emily quickly looked away. The sun had vanished behind thick dark cloud and rain began, speckling the windows teasingly at first, and then hammering them so hard Emily was scared they would shatter. She gazed outside, wondering where the horizon was, wondering what colour the sea was this evening, wondering what Sam would do if she just ran out into the rain, face upturned to the sky and stayed out there until she felt truly clean.

'Have you decided you want to tell me what's wrong yet?' Sam asked. The question was as cold as the weather.

Emily tore her gaze away from the window. Sam's loud fork was now settled amongst the half-eaten food on her plate. Her arms were folded.

'There's nothing wrong,' she sighed. 'I just ... it's ... my writing's not going very well at the moment.'

She felt briefly grateful that she wasn't taking stun pills at that moment. Emily never considered herself a liar. Not anymore. There were times when she had lied to her parents, to Katie, to everyone she knew at school, but she had never believed the lies herself.

Sam's hardened face softened minutely. 'Yeah?' she asked. 'What are you working on?'

Emily was always working on nothing. And everything. The most she had ever managed to actually get published was a few stories in local journals. They were always short. Emily kept them short. It was like she had so many ideas that she was afraid they would merge and become one incoherent consciousness. So she would separate them, giving them individual characters and worlds that would never meet. Parallel universes that couldn't exist together. She had become so terrified of confusing her separate worlds that the thought of writing anything as long a novel made her never want to pick up a pen again. But at the same time she longed to write one, and to nurture and cultivate it as it grew. But she needed order. She needed stability. She needed segregation. Everything had to have its own separate compartment. It needed to be that way. Or all the boundaries between the universes would crumble, and she would descend into chaos.

'Just another short story,' Emily said eventually.

Sam picked up her fork again. 'What's it about?'

'A girl,' Emily answered.

Sam made a winding motion with her hand to prompt Emily to elaborate.

'A girl who's so lost she doesn't even realise that she's lost. And she wakes up one day and she doesn't know where she is.'

Sam nodded as if the idea appealed to her. 'Sounds good babe. Want me to proof-read it for you?'

Emily tried to smile, 'Nah ... you've got enough to do.'

Sam snorted in amusement, 'Too bloody right,' she agreed. 'Speaking of which, we've got a lead on that break-in.'

Emily looked immediately back out of the window. It was still raining like it would never stop. 'Yeah?' she asked quietly.

'We think it might have been an inside job,' Sam said.

Emily frowned, but continued to look away. 'Why's that?'

Sam swallowed the food she had in her mouth hurriedly, like she was excited about telling someone. 'Well, we interviewed everyone in the office, and there was a photography technician that said someone was sent to the plant room to check the phone connection, but they never came back.'

Emily whipped back round to face Sam. 'So?' she said. 'Maybe the phones were down. The phones might've been down, you don't know.'

Sam looked puzzled at the speed of Emily's answer. But she just shook her head and continued. 'Yeah but the point is, a maintenance check was just performed on the alarm _that day_. So they must've been working fine after that. This person that went down after: I think that might be our guy ... or, y'know, girl.' Sam shovelled another forkful of food into her mouth.

Emily clenched her jaw. She wondered if she should tell Sam that she was heading in entirely the wrong direction. But what if that led to her finding out Naomi was there? What if that, in turn, led to her finding out that _she_ had seen Naomi there, and had honourably let her go? It was too risky. Wasn't it?

The walls around the worlds were crumbling and the chaos was seeping through.

'Did ... did this technician remember who it was?' she asked.

Sam shook her head. 'No she didn't see them. She just over-heard someone say it.'

Emily sighed out a breath she was unaware she had been holding. 'Well that's hardly any proof at all.'

'True,' Sam agreed, 'but we'll know more once the security camera's fixed.'

The rain seemed to pelt down harder than ever at that moment.

'Security camera?'

'Yeah. Someone jammed a screw-driver into one to stop it working. They managed to miss all the vital organs though. Reckon we can still get something from the discs. They won't work on the players at the scene, but we're getting them ready to send off to the lab.'

Emily felt like she could barely hear Sam's voice over the rain.

'I mean really,' Sam went on, 'A screw-driver? You think they'd have a bit more sense.'

Emily folded her arms and sat back heavily against her chair. 'Yeah ... you'd think so wouldn't you?'

...

* * *

'The sun's shining Naomi!'

Naomi screwed her closed eyes shut even tighter and groaned.

Must be 8.15.

The door opened, the cup was set down, her hair was unwelcomely ruffled.

'Mum?' Naomi said, not bothering to open her eyes, 'The sun is not shining. In fact, over forty percent of the time that statement is a complete lie. I don't appreciate you coming into my room and telling great big whoppers.'

The mattress beneath her shifted and she opened her eyes to see her Mum sat down next to her on the bed. Naomi sat up, scratching at her messy hair and rubbing her eyes.

'_You _had a phonecall this morning,' Gina said with a smile.

'I did?' Naomi asked. She would have been nervous, if it wasn't for the smile on her Mum's face that betrayed any hazardousness of the situation. 'From who?'

'Have a guess,' her Mum said.

Naomi rolled her eyes. 'McGruff the crime fighting dog?'

'Nope,' her Mum continued smiling. 'You'll never get it,' she decided. 'It was Emily Fitch. Remember her?'

Naomi's stomach did a little flip. She tried to ignore the feeling. 'Yeah I remember her.'

'She wants to see you,' Gina gave her a playful poke in the side, which Naomi flinched irritably away from.

'What else did she say?'

'To meet her this evening at her house at eight o'clock,' Gina was positively beaming now.

Naomi chewed on her lip for a second. Her brain rattled through possible reasons for why Emily would need to see her so soon. As much as she wanted it to be a simple, friendly inquiry as to her health, she couldn't stop the niggling suspicion that it could only be bad news. She looked back at her Mum's smug face.

'Okay mother, you can stop grinning like a maniac now. Will that be all?' she asked, bringing her knees up to her chest.

'Yes that was all,' Gina said standing up. She moved over to the door. 'Except for '_Emily likes Naomi, Emily likes Naom_i –' she repeated in a childish sing-song.

'Get out Mum!' Naomi shouted, and Gina retreated into the landing, continuing her taunt.

Naomi rolled her eyes and sat back against her pillows. She frowned, clenching her jaw, her mind racing as to what on earth could have gone so wrong that Emily needed to see her tonight. Despite all the fear, all the anxiety, and all the chaos that could potentially be traced back to this very moment, Naomi felt a smile tug at her lips.

...

* * *

Emily had barely explained anything when Naomi had showed up at her door, smoothed down her hair and clothes, checked her reflection in the glass panel on the door, and calmly rang the buzzer.

The door had been roughly yanked open, and Emily had stepped out immediately, grabbing Naomi by the hand and tugging her away from the house.

'Emily? What the fuck?' Naomi had asked, not wishing to be dragged back out into the cold night that she had just emerged from.

'You're turning into a really big problem for me you know!' Emily said irately, by way of a greeting.

Naomi frowned, wrenching her hand from out of Emily's grasp and shoving it petulantly into the pocket of her coat. 'Are you going to fucking _explain_ to me what's going on? Or are you just going to yell?'

'First I'm going to yell, and then I'm going to explain,' Emily paused, 'But I'm going to yell while I'm explaining.'

Naomi sighed. 'Great.'

'I am _so_ mad at you,' Emily added.

'I've noticed.'

'They've got fucking security cameras, Naomi,' Emily said.

The air temperature seemed to drop a degree colder.

'They ... they don't,' Naomi stammered. 'I got them.'

'Did you?' Emily asked, 'Or did you stick a screw driver in them and hope for the best?'

Naomi chewed her bottom lip and scratched at her nose.

'Yeah,' Emily said maliciously, 'thought so.'

Naomi rolled her eyes. 'Okay I get it. I did bad, you're angry, but what the hell are we doing here?'

'We're going back to the studio,' Emily explained, 'and we're getting the disc.'

'Oh ... great fucking plan detective,' Naomi said. 'How do you propose we do that?'

'Just shut up and follow me,' Emily muttered, striding forwards leaving Naomi stood momentarily dazed in the street, feeling the first fledgling drops of rain of what promised to be a wet and filthy night.

When they got to the magazine's head office, Naomi's stomach and chest tightened painfully with nerves. She stopped just before the police tape that was strung across the door like a sticky strand from massive cobweb. Naomi couldn't shake the feeling that she was going to get strung up and devoured.

'Shouldn't there be like ... a guard or something?' Naomi asked. It was the first words she had spoken to Emily since they embarked upon their quest. The girl had stayed several paces ahead of her the whole way, leaving Naomi, characteristically, hanging back in a sulk.

Emily didn't respond. She merely tapped away at the numeric panel on the door. Her fingers flew across the metal buttons, graceful and nimble like some wild prairie animal.

'How the fuck do you know the code?' Naomi asked.

Emily didn't look up from her work. 'Sam had it in her notepad.'

'Sam?' Naomi practically spat, 'Why would Sam have it?'

Naomi heard the hollow, echoey sound of the door latch clicking free. 'Emily?' she prompted as she stepped through the glass doors and into the reception.

'Because she's working on the case,' Emily said quietly, pulling the door shut behind her and typing in the code again. The buttons tapped metallically like a dozen clawed animals running across a roof.

Naomi blinked in the dim room, slowly processing the information that had been carelessly flung in her direction. She tugged Emily's right shoulder, forcefully spinning her round to face her.

'You're _boning_ the police officer that's after me?' she demanded incredulously.

'No!' Emily shouted back, 'I'm _going to marry_ the police officer that's after you!'

Naomi clapped her hands over her eyes, emitting a guttural groan. 'This could just not get any fucking worse,' she observed.

'Yeah?' Emily challenged, 'Well it's about to unless we find that fucking disc.'

...


	8. Chapter 8

**So due to today's (entirely justified) tube strike, I couldn't get into work and thought I would use my free time constructively i.e. a brief update.**

**Thank you for all your lovely comments for the previous chapter and to everyone who wished me well with the move. You're a considerate bunch aren't you? It all went off hitchlessly (word?) ta for asking :) **

**(A few notes (which I'm a bad person for not usually doing): Thank you to my-other-ride-es-tu-madre for dutifully going back and reviewing every chapter. Your patience astounds me *astounded* (and also makes me smile)**

**Pollastre – architectural you say? Interesting ... that may just be my profession. Very deductive :)**

**Hyperfitched - Insight. 'Tis one of your gifts :D**

**And total-freedom. I'm a huge fan of profanity, complimentary or otherwise. Keep it coming.)**

**And generally just thank you EVERYONE for reading and reviewing and maybe even enjoying? Would love to hear your thoughts on this one!**

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Chapter eight

'Fine.'

Naomi was scowling, a glower that she let linger bad-temperedly upon Emily for a few seconds before walking off quickly in the direction of the plant room, her wet shoes squeaking irascibly on the linoleum floor.

Emily glared at her retreating back for a few moments before following. What right did Naomi have for making _her _feel guilty? The more time Emily spent with Naomi, the more she recognised of the person she had known, like she was growing back out of the ground she had been stamped into.

It didn't take them long to find Naomi's handy-work. The camera had been taken down from its perch near the ceiling, a long black fibre of wire trailed from where it rested on a table and back up into a wall, like someone had ripped a body from its spine. The screwdriver stuck out almost comically from the camera, not quite buried to the hilt, its handle coloured a brilliant and incriminating red. Next to it was a roll of polythene bags with zip-openings, several pairs of latex gloves and an assortment of tweezers. To Emily it looked like some kind of bizarre operating table.

The stake through the heart of the camera looked like it had been shot from a bow. The sort of long-distance injury that had devastating power but no accuracy. Emily looked at the hands responsible for the fatality as Naomi tried to pull the implement free from its victim.

'What are you doing?' Emily asked, watching the stringy tendons in Naomi's hands rise and strain beneath her skin as she flexed and clenched her fingers around the handle of the screw driver.

'It's fucking stuck isn't it?' Naomi grumbled, lifting the camera up by the screw driver and wiggling it in the air to illustrate her point.

'You're going to get fingerprints all over it!' Emily told her in exasperation. It was like looking after a child. A criminally inclined child. And before Emily had time to properly proofread what she was about to say the words fell from her lips: 'Jesus Naomi ... no wonder you ended up in prison.'

The words rand loudly around the deserted room.

The second they had escaped her mouth Emily's hand shot up to clamp around it, as if rushing to put them back in.

But she couldn't.

Naomi turned slowly round to face her.

Emily's face was scrunched with shame.

'Your precious Sam tell you that?' Naomi snarled eventually, after fixing Emily with a harrowing stare.

Emily looked at her guiltily. 'She mentioned it, yeah,' regret colouring her words.

'Not much for police confidentiality, huh?' Naomi asked.

Emily's guilt transformed seamlessly into irritation. 'We don't have secrets,' she snapped.

'Well you do now, don't you?'

Maybe it was then that Emily was hit by the full force of how irrevocably involved she was in Naomi's chaos. Because as Naomi's mouth moved into the shapes to form the sounds of those spiteful words, she could see the whole sequence of events unfolding with startling clarity.

But maybe the clues had been there the whole time. They had been there from the moment she had stumbled into the plant room to find Naomi raking her fingers through electrical cables; they had been there during the phone call where she was convinced against her will to take the job alongside Katie; they had been there when Naomi had refused to leave her room or answer any of her calls after they were called into the station to make statements after Freddie's body was heaved up from the earth of a suburban garden; and they had been there in the irregular heptagram of the blood that leaked onto the floor from Sophia's skull. But she had been too close, she didn't know what she was seeing. It was like she had been staring at a single, abstract dab of paint: out of context and irrelevant until you've zoomed out to see the whole picture.

Emily blinked vacantly at Naomi, who's unrelenting stare just reinforced everything she'd just realised. And she knew Naomi knew it too.

A distant tapping snapped Emily back into the present, and she glanced nervously around the room.

The inquisitive beam of a torch flashed excitedly across the wall next to her, and before she knew it there was a violent clatter next to her and Naomi had dashed away from the table and squeezed herself behind a door that she pulled tightly towards the wall.

'Emily!' she hissed urgently.

Emily turned her dim gaze to the thin sliver of Naomi she could just make out from behind the door. 'I told you there would be a fucking guard!'

Emily's eyes widened as the tapping became more than an isolated disembodied sound, growing shoes, and feet attached legs and eventually legs that were attached to a full grown person with a badge and a baton and a uniform.

Panic crept up from the ground like ice, curling up and around her legs in single, sinuous tendrils, freezing her where she stood.

Naomi snaked an arm out from behind the door and made a series of urgent but elaborate gestures.

Emily flicked her head left and right, her hair whipping round, snapping back against her face.

'Emily!' Naomi whispered. Desperation now. The room smelt of it.

The tapping grew louder and Emily finally managed to seize control of her frozen limbs for long enough for them to lead her staggering awkwardly from side to side, contemplating where on earth they could possibly run to.

Naomi was keeping silent, but her gesticulating got more frantic. Emily could almost hear the swishing of the air around her. Unable to understand, Emily merely tangoed blindly back and forth under the near-hysterical waving until, casting a terrified look over her shoulder directly into the beam of light she dashed across the room, forcefully slamming herself against the soft body that cowered behind the door.

She felt Naomi clutch at her, pulling her tighter against her as the guard swung the beam of light into the far corner of the room, scaling it up and along the back wall then into the following corner, finally dragging it back to where the camera lay motionless on the surface of the table. Next to the bags. Next to the gloves. Next to the tweezers.

The rate of Emily's heartbeat was beginning to scare her. She thought briefly of the rabbit her and Katie had kept when they were younger, and how she could feel its heart beneath the tiny, snappable bones of its ribcage when she insisted on lifting it up and carrying it into the living room to introduce it to her toys. Its heart had beat so fast beneath her palm that Emily had wondered how it could possibly still be alive. She had the same fear for herself in that moment.

She tilted her head back slightly to look at Naomi. Her steely gaze was focused on the slowly retreating circle of light that trailed perilously close to their feet along the floor. Her breath sounded heavy and laboured as it puffed hotly across Emily's face.

Emily couldn't remember the last time she had felt this scared.

Or angry.

It felt ... good.

_Naomi_ felt good, all pushed up hard against her, so close she could see the pulse at the base of her neck and the beads of sweat as they materialised upon her skin.

Naomi's gaze flicked from the floor to Emily, her eyes unbearably intense, her hair slicked across her forehead with sweat. Emily felt the rhythmic bumping of Naomi's chest against her own as she heaved in ragged, nervous breaths.

The hands Naomi had instinctively slid around her waist clutched against the material of Emily's clothes, and Emily felt her gaze drop fluidly, imperceptibly, to her mouth.

Naomi bit her lower lip softly before releasing it back from beneath her teeth.

Emily swallowed.

A sharp bang made them both jump, and Emily's sprang back from Naomi out into the dark room, the guard and his torch light lost within the shadowy recesses of the building.

'Em – '

'Don't,' Emily silenced her as she walked briskly back over to the table. 'Let's just get what we came for and get the fuck out of here.'

She heard Naomi sigh and sidle up to her. She could've sworn that she also heard her mutter 'Yes ma'am.'

...

* * *

They had spent the first few minutes of the journey back in a flat-out sprint. The cold air that Naomi gulped greedily back into her lungs stung her throat and froze her chest. The sound of four feet splashing through the dark puddles on the street, and the puffing of jerkily exhaled breath was the only sound that Naomi could hear.

She felt the slow muscle burn clench around her thighs and stomach and her pace slackened, shuddering clumsily to a halt. She exhaled heavily, bending over and stretching her arms so that her hands slid down her thighs to her knees. She watched Emily do the same next to her. She chanced a small smile in her direction that Emily didn't return.

...

'So what do you fancy doing tomorrow night Em?' Naomi asked as they wandered back. The rain was cold and hard, tapping hollowly on the shoulders of Naomi's jacket. 'How about we rob an off-licence at gun-point? Or ... knock over some grannies or something – '

'No Naomi,' Emily interrupted, stopping in the road and turning to face her. 'This is it. Seriously. I can't see you again.'

Naomi stopped walking then. Not deliberately. Her legs just stopped working.

'What?' she asked. But I've just _found_ you again. ''Cause I didn't mean it about the grannies – '

'Naomi,' she could feel Emily trying to silence her, like the very words she was speaking physically hurt her. 'I'm going home now. I suggest you do the same,' Emily told her.

Naomi stood beneath the pelting rain, each drop highlighted in the sickly orange glow of a sodium street lamp. Emily stared at her, unmoving, like a waxwork. Her face was smooth, not crinkled or tugged by any lines of emotion. She was blank.

Something that should be alive. But wasn't.

'Emily,' Naomi found her lips moving. They were moving because they had no choice. Because Emily didn't mean it. Not really. They would always stumble blindly back towards each other.

'Bye Naomi,' Emily's mouth moved, but Naomi couldn't understand what it was staying.

Then she turned and moved off.

Naomi lost sight of her almost instantly through the rain and against the night.

If the rain hadn't been beating down so heavily at that moment that it felt like it was cutting down to the bone, Naomi could've sworn she had been rendered entirely numb.

...


End file.
